Growing concern for cloud storage privacy and security along with recent challenges to the Safe Harbor agreement are forcing global enterprises to evaluate their data management practices and prioritize the merits of private clouds versus the cost efficiencies of public clouds. Today, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) announced new enhancements to the Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) portfolio that extend the flexibility, security and content mobility breadth of its award-winning object storage platform, thus enabling robust, compliant and massively scalable private cloud storage solutions that have the economics of public cloud.

Enterprises require explicit control of data and cloud storage security in a flexible cloud solution. The latest version of HCP provides enhanced data management and cutting edge data protection features that deliver robust data security, sovereignty and compliance. Included in these enhancements is the new HCP S30, which offers over 450PB of affordable commodity storage in a single system. The new HCP G node server architecture also gives organizations greater flexibility to support mixed workloads with varying performance and scale requirements, and support for SSDs for higher performing workloads. A new version of Hitachi Data Ingestor (HDI) rounds out the new offerings, bringing customers greater performance and economy of storage, expansion of software-defined architectures and improved data mobility. Combined, these new updates allow IT professionals to build, run and manage their own private or hybrid cloud storage within budget.

The new Hitachi Content Platform v7.2 guarantees explicit control of data, allowing enterprises to better manage how data is accessed and shared. Together with Hitachi Content Platform S30, customers can manage data security and data sovereignty and compliance risks associated with cloud storage cost effectively. The solution delivers dense, highly scalable storage that extends the existing HDS hybrid architecture with an erasure-coded, low cost tier. HCP v7.2 includes support for the new HCP S30 and HCP G10 storage and server nodes and support for solid state drives. It also enables HCP write-through to S series storage, allowing customers with applicable use cases to reduce TCO by leveraging the S series instead of direct-attach storage arrays.

Organizations can extend this private cloud storage solution to remote and branch offices and access NAS storage systems using HDI. Thus, customers can modernize their Microsoft Windows and NFS file server environments, simplify data management, and ensure greater control of data sharing. The latest version supports new server technology including Hyper-V, SMB 3.0, file system full prevention, VSS restore of previous file versions for SMB, and embedded anti-virus functionality.

"Data is at the core of our business and its safekeeping and proper management is pivotal to the success and prosperity of our organization. We leverage the HCP portfolio as the heart of our cloud storage because of its rich capabilities in intelligent data management and security. This allows us to maintain control and visibility of our data at all times." - Carsten Danner, Team Leader, Global Infrastructure, Global IT, DSV A/S

"Due to the recent Safe Harbor court rulings and ongoing concern about data sovereignty, PRISM and cloud security in general, IT professionals are being forced to look at how and where their data is stored. As we've seen in our research, there is significant demand for private and hybrid cloud storage in order to address these concerns as organizations scramble to protect their most valuable information assets. Hitachi Data Systems solves this problem by bringing trusted and secure private and hybrid cloud storage to the customer." - Terri McClure, ESG

"We are committed to expanding the depth and breadth of our data mobility solution portfolio by embracing and extending support for commodity hardware, open source technologies and public cloud. The HCP portfolio remains the industry's only single vendor solution that is tightly integrated for data mobility and enables customers to maintain visibility and control of their data no matter where their content resides." - Peter Sjoberg, CTO, Cloud and Mobility, Hitachi Data Systems

The newest versions of Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) and Hitachi Data Ingestor (HDI) complement recent updates to HCP Anywhere, which allows organizations to provide secure file sync and share tools to their users.